but they can't be happy today with gold at $1043! this is from gene arensberg's latest "got gold" report:

Material resistance seems to have formed at slightly lower levels over the past two weeks, first forming in the $1,020s, then edging a little lower to just under $1,010. That shows up on the charts as a technical “flag” or small consolidation on the charts.

The fact that we have a consolidation – at upper and historic resistance – means that the jury is still out whether gold has what it takes to complete a convincing breakout. So far, the massive resistance put up by the largest gold hedgers and short sellers of “paper gold” futures has been enough to keep gold from printing new all time highs. (More about that in the Gold COT section below.)

The short-selling gauntlet thrown down against gold futures by the largest of the largest commercial futures traders remained in place over the past two weeks. While the battle rages on, it does so without us directly in the battle, as we have been stopped out (profitably) to the sidelines with most of our short-term trading.

The longer gold fails to advance beyond the upper edge of the developing technical “flag” (convincingly) the more emboldened those who would sell gold become.

On the other hand, the longer that gold fails to violate its obvious new support in the $990s, the more confident gold bulls will become.

Obviously, such a gold bull-bear stalemate will be short lived (no pun intended). Sooner or later gold will “show” its hand, forcing one side or the other to take defensive action.

We are convinced that whichever way gold ends up moving out of this high-consolidation there will be significant and rapid follow through. We are intensely interested as to which of the battling armies will achieve victory, but the indicators we follow religiously are in short-term conflict, rather than agreement.